Addenda to Your Emergency Evacuation Plan

When one has spent a long time away, coming back doesn’t
happen all at once. That’s one of the things we learn fromThe Princess Bride. For instance, this is my third day back at work
after sitting with my father for two weeks as he went from life
support to physical therapy, and sitting with my mother who
we had to place in a home while he’s away, because she needs
supervision, six years or so—they’re not sure—into Alzheimer’s.
The first day back is learning to swim. It’s swim class, and I
forgot to practice. Test day. It’s papers and clocks and where
am I supposed to be next. It feels no more or less real than
watching monitors at the hospital. The second day back is
pretending I’m a newspaper. One-paragraph updates to each
doorstep over the last two weeks, the not letting go, the
something other than the inevitable. I’m unprepared for day
three. I was listening to the radio on my thirteen-hour drive
home, and Ben Affleck was telling Terry Gross the advice Kevin
Costner gave him on directing: always know your second shot.
If you’re only prepared for the first shot, you run the risk of
panicking, the crew all standing there looking at you with the
clock ticking. The second shot allows you the follow-through,
the momentum to get the ball rolling. A little hedge. Likewise,
Quetzalcoatlus, named after the winged Aztec god Quetzalcoatl,
a pterosaur with a wingspan of up to 45 feet, had to plan its lift-
offs, as it needed a wind of about 30 mph to get enough lift to
get airborne, leaving it a fairly easy target when on land. That
was from a science documentary I watched with the kids last
night, and now I’m thinking that’s day three. Day three needs a
30 mph wind to take off. There are some people holding a
Bible study in the next room while I’m typing, and it sounds
like an indefinable knocking on my door, asking me what my
favorite color is, only I can’t use any names of colors in my
answer, because that’s how the indefinable rolls. It’s a good
day, day three, compared to the really bad days, but compared
to the really good days, it’s gone out for peanuts and hasn’t yet
completed its travel forms. Day four is waiting off to the side, it
will be clouds disguised as clouds. Maybe snipers in the forest.

current issue

Confluences

Before Robert was born, scientists of the Human Genome Project had begun mapping our species’ DNA structure and variants, all three billion nucleotides. They finished in 2003.

In 2012, Robert’s genomic analysis showed one mutation inherited from me, the other de novo, unreported or entirely new. A transcription error during gamete replication, perhaps. A silent ping from a heretofore unknown genomic universe. A one in three billion chance happening, his geneticist said of my son, a roll of the conceptual dice.